Winter Tree Study – buds – KIND + CULTIVATED

In preparing for this month’s Nature Adventure, we noticed trees budding and blooming all over the place with the unseasonably warm February! We love winter tree study and have enjoyed the years collecting twigs to observe the buds. Some years our focus has been about what trees we can tap (trees with opposite growth like maples and sycamore are good trees to collect sap) and some years our focus has been about the flowering catkins! This year, we are looking closely at the bud scales on each twig.

Download our handout for this month here! Michelle has been such a help this semester by providing a sheet with more information and graphics! It’s been a wonderful addition to our class. (Click here for last month’s post!)

The two important words that we wanted our children to add to their nature journals were “imbricate” and “valvate.” If you look at the handout, the imbricate scales look like overlapping roof tiles. The maple tree is a great example! Valvate scales can be found on our TN state tree, the Tuliptree (or Tulip Poplar.) In this bud, the two parts of the scale close in on each other kind of like a clam shell.

At our Nature Adventure the students were given an example of each tree bud and drew the scales in their nature journals! Our weather was perfect so we had plenty of exploration to see what kinds of trees were in bloom at the creek!